NAS bringing together laptop & TV - Help please!!!

[chad053]

Hi All,

 

I have just realized how far behind I am with technology, although I consider myself as computer literate person, lol, reallyt unbelibable how those things are moving so so fast. Recently, I just bought a samsung Plasma TV PS50B850, and it's an awesome TV... on its own, it decodes almost all available video formats including mkv and so on, it also have something called dlna protocol I think which actually helps the tv to interact with a NAS. At the moment, I am downloading video files via my laptop to my portable hard disk which I am then connecting to my tv by USB to watch.

 

Obvioulsy now, I want to be able to use a big hard disk (1TB Minimum) which is both accessable from my laptop and TV at all times. At the begining, I started doing some research about weather I could have a hard disk with 2 usbs (To connect one to my Laptop and one to my tv) but apparently doesn't exits. Then I looked at hard disks which could have one ethernet and one usb ports (To connect ethernet to my laptop/router and usb to my tv) Prouved to be a bad idea and it's usually either ethernet or usb. Then I had a look at media players, prouved to be quite good, but there's no good reliable brand producing those players at the moment. If someone has a better idea of how else I could achieve these connections, please advise.

 

Therefore, I got back to the original Idea of using a NAS. Thus, I have some doubts about using it, and it would be highly appreciated if someone could help me out. The questions might be very basic, but bare with me please.

 

1) I've read online that some people gets some problem to forward or rewind a movie when viewing from NAS dlna (The Plasma TV has a wifi dongle). I think it might be because of the wireless speed or something. Would it change if I buy a super "high speed router", and use "cable" instead of wifi?

 

2) I have noticed that people usually use the word "streaming Video" from the NAS. This word is a bit confusing to me. Therefore, I would like to know how does the NAS actually interact with the video files. When streaming a video from the NAS to my TV, does the NAS decode the video file and send it to my tv or does it simply send the video file to my tv which in turn, have to decode the file?

 

There are soooo many NAS model out there. It would be highly appreciated if you could advise about some good NAS which would do the job well for me. It is very important for me that the devise is quiet as it will probabaly stand next to my TV for wired connections.

 

Thank you all for your help and views.

Best Regards,

 

Chad053

 

[vortecjr]

I don't even know where to start! First, so you know the TV goes connected to a network via an ethernet cable or wireless. It does not go connected directly to the nas. Then the nas also gets connected to the network via another ethernet cable. Now your computer also gets connected to the network via an ethernet cable or with a wireless connection. If your following along you need a router for all these connection to terminate at and it needs wireless features if your using a wireless pc or the wireless link from the tv. You also need to load the software cd/dvd that came with the pc to load "PC Share Manager". Personally, I would start with the cables and try wireless later when its up and running. Its going to take time.

 

This link will help you find some answers:

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/tv-video/televisions/plasma-tv/PN50B850Y1FXZA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=support

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

 

 

[chad053]

Hi Vortecjr

 

Thank you very much for your response, but i think you misunderstood my point. I'm not that terrible at technology, I do understand it a minimum. Like I do know that I can't connect the NAS direct to the TV, and that all the laptop, TV and NAS should all be connected to a router of course. In fact, I don't want to do any wifi connection at all, although I will have the possibility of doing so, because I trust wired connection better.

 

From all the writing I did above, I am hoping to obtain alternate ways of making the connections or answers to the following two questions below:

 

1) I've read online that some people gets some problem to forward or rewind a movie when viewing from NAS dlna (The Plasma TV has a wifi dongle). I think it might be because of the wireless speed or something. Would it change if I buy a super "high speed router", and use "cable" instead of wifi?

 

2) I have noticed that people usually use the word "streaming Video" from the NAS. This word is a bit confusing to me. Therefore, I would like to know how does the NAS actually interact with the video files. When streaming a video from the NAS to my TV, does the NAS decode the video file and send it to my tv or does it simply send the video file to my tv which in turn, have to decode the file?

 

Thank you very much for your contribution Vortecjr,

Regards,

 

Chad

 

[agillis]

1. Rewind and video problem are usually caused by one of two things. A poorly setup wireless network or a inexpensive and slow NAS. If you go all hard wired you won't have this problem. Also make sure you get a high performance NAS. I would recommend something like a VortexBox appliance because it's high performance and supports DLNA like your TV.

 

2. With DLNA both either can happen. If your TV supports the format your are trying to play the fill will be sent to the TV. If your try to play a file format the the TV dosn't understand some DLNA server can "transcode" the source file into a fiel the TV can understand.

 

By the way good choice on that TV. I am planing to pick one up myself. it's video playback capabilities are great. I still might consider a small PC running XBMC as a player instead of the internal one on the TV but that's another device (yuck).

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Agillis - Please do not recommend your own products and please identify yourself in your signature as someone who sells the VortexBox.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Have you considered installing a DLNA server onto your laptop as a first trial. A lot of people use Twonky (a lot of NAS use this) or I've had success with TVersity in the past.

 

If this works, then either look for a NAS (Buffalo Linkstatiom Live at budget end of QNAP or Thecus higher end) or you could consider an entry level PC from Dell or similar and run a DLNA server on that.

 

Eloise

 

[vortecjr]

I thought my tv was dlna....no such luck:( However, I knew something around here was and I found them:). My hdx-1000 is dlna and my drobo storage is with an app. I have to tell you the video on the hdx is a wow! Anyway, I can see the tv decoding, but I'm not convinced the nas will. I guess the word streaming is bugging me as well. So I'm reading up on it to see what more I can learn. FYI, I did read that you can connect a usb drive direct to your tv and it will play audio mp3 files, but I did not see that it would play video that way.

 

Agillis, shame on you.....

 

Eloise, very impressive!

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

[CharlyD]

Hi Chad - First of all, congratulations on being such a brave early adopter! I strongly believe that future home entertainment systems (both video and audio) will be networked devices which very closely follow the guidelines defined in the current UPnP/DLNA specs.

 

In answer to your questions:

 

1) When putting together a home network that will carry audio and video content, high bandwidth is always a good goal. One method for achieving this goal is to use powerline networking. By simply installing a large wall-wart adapter on a socket in each room where you'll need access, you can achieve datarates of up to 200 Mbps. With such a network, you could locate your NAS in a closet and never have to contend with its noise.

 

2) Streaming means that there is no persistent storage of the content at the rendering device. There may be a few seconds of buffering, but that is the largest block of the content ever stored. DLNA defines formats for media content transferred between devices and how the format is negotiated between devices. The decoding can occur at either the server or renderer. In the case of video, the specification defines that MPEG2 must be supported. For audio, all devices must support LPCM. Several other audio and video codecs are optional.

 

If you're purchasing a NAS, make sure it includes a UPnP/DLNA media server or that such a server (e.g. Twonky) can be easily installed.

 

 

 

[agillis]

I created a signature file that identifies myself as the project Lead. Is that better? I don't want to make anybody mad. Quite the contrary I created VortexBox as free open source software spacifically for the computer music community and I am very interested in any feedback.

 

[vortecjr]

nice job and FYI I was pulling your leg before. Anyway, I spent some time today on your site and I found it very interesting. I have a few questions if you don't mind. Is the ripping software something you developed and can it be changed to add support for other formats? What are you using as the media player under linux? Is the Fedora kernal enabled for usb-audio playback?

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

ps good info CharlyD

 

[agillis]

Thanks, community members have developed the ripping software. it works with FLAC and mp3. Not sure what else you would need. We use SqueezeSlave from as a player. It works really well with USB.

 

I am very interested in your product as well but I don't want to hijack this thread can you PM on the VortexBox user forum when you get the chance (user andrew)?

 

[chad053]

Just wanna thank you all for your contribution, it's been of great help... I now know what I need, high speed router, wired connection and a good upnp/dlna NAS.

 

Thanks

 

Chad